tapestodiane | 030 - audio/action

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030 - audio/action

[There's been a lot of stuff going on on Coop's end lately. Between fighting sudden fire mutations, two of his coworkers arriving, having very interesting dates and other shenanigans going on, he hasn't felt the need nor exactly had the time to adress the network.]

[Today is different.]

[Today is a very important day with a very important topic.]

Evening, network! I have a proposition to make.

[Wait for it ...]

While there is no shortage of action in both regions, especially as of late, [you Rockets been busy, haven't you,] I still find that I have a preference to the kind offered by puzzle games. And to my knowledge I'm not the only one.

So how about some friendly competition? I'd love a Tetris score to beat other than my own.

[YEP. He's still playing. It's been a year since he last mentioned it and since then, what with all the game recommendations, he's been slowly going through most games the apps have to offer. And gotten mildly addicted to almost all of them. But Tetris is still his one true love. Tetris and Minesweeper.]

I'm thinking an all-encompassing high score table. I'll keep it updated for as long as there's interest. Any takers?

[Dork.]

[Also action for anyone in Goldenrod - he'll be easily found along the streets, hanging out with some of his pokémon, window shopping or messing with his gear some. It's a nice quiet day and he's happy to just soak in that for a while.]

Audio, private to Heather: I'm in town. Do you have time to meet?

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_{[He's still quiet for the most part, but there's a hint of a grimace as he listens. Sometimes, the world is nothing short of terrible. For some more than others.]

[But he also doesn't have a lot to add, because he doesn't particularly want to ask her for specifics here. He normally would - he's curious, sometimes even nosy, not to mention it's encouraged in his work - but Heather's different.]}

_{[She's quiet for a short time, but continues after a moment, as though she hadn't stopped at all.]}

... I just left him up there on the roof.

... Later, after it was all over, I spent like... five minutes being a suspect in Dad's murder. ... Since I touched the body n'then left the scene of the crime for hours before showing up again.

But the evidence all pointed to that guy, n'they decided that he must've chased me up there and got killed in the struggle and then I ran off 'cuz teenagers freak the fuck out when psycho killers come after them or something.

Maybe Douglas gave 'em that story, I don't really know.

I didn't bother telling 'em what really happened.

_{[Her voice had grown somewhat dull and despondent.]}

... So that was the first person I killed.

_{[He runs a hand over his face and nods, but doesn't take very long to ask what he wants to know. The moment of silence there is quiet, though. Not appraising, calculating, or even hesitating. Just a silence to let that whole thing settle slightly and to acknowledge the gravity it has.]}

The others - were they like him?

_{[She thinks about that for a moment.]}

... Sort of.

... A little, I guess.

_{[At least in the sense that it had been a 'kill or be killed' scenario, which was genuinely true for every fight she had taken on back there on that horrible night, even the ones that weren't against human beings (... that she knew of...).]

[But... Leonard had been different.]

[With the Missionary, it hadn't even OCCURRED to her to consider him human until long after the fact, when the realities that had been masked by the Otherworld (... or... was it the other way around?) had started to sink in in the cold, hard light of day.]

[Leonard...]}

... The other one was Claudia's father.

_{[... Now that she thinks about it... it really WAS ironic.]

[An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...]}

_{[And that irony doesn't escape Cooper - in fact, it can be viewed as something deliberate, and that's something he has to clear up.]}

Did you mean it to be?

_{[Because if she'd sought him out ...]}

_{[If things had been normal between them, she might have laughed. Because... well, jeez, it DOES sound like something she'd do, doesn't it? It had been so disturbingly convenient.]

[But things aren't normal, and she's in no laughing mood, not even for those weird dark, mirthless laughs that sometimes escape her when they talk about terrible things.]

[So instead, she just shakes her head.]}

No... believe it or not. Not in the slightest.

_{[She takes a deep breath, because this is a longer story than the Missionary's. You wouldn't THINK so, given which one had performed the act of violence that had TRULY altered Heather's life forever... but it is.]}

At first, we were... I actually thought-- ... I actually thought we were on the same side.

It was...

... Awhile after Dad died.

Maybe four or five hours.

Douglas had... after we took care of Dad's body, he drove me to Silent Hill, where Claudia wanted me to go. We'd been told to look for a guy named Leonard, so we split up...

I was-- ... I was poking around a mental asylum where he'd been... committed, I guess. And then I got this... phonecall... turned out it was him. Leonard Wolf. Claudia's dad.

... It was a bit confusing at first, but it turned out he wanted to stop her as much as I did... said he was sorry that she killed my father, that we should... work together, since we both wanted her dead.

_{[She pauses briefly to rub at her temples, because in hindsight... how fucked-up had that been? She'd been too blind with hatred and rage to think too hard about the fact that Claudia's own father had wanted her to die.]}

But he was... trapped way down below the building, and I had to get him outta there if we were gonna make things work, so I...

... I made my way down to find him, and once I did...

_{[Here her voice goes flat in disgust.]}

Turns out he was even crazier than she was.

Wanted her dead because they couldn't fucking agree on their own damn religion. Thought she was too merciful.

... When he found out I wasn't a member of the church, he went completely ballistic. Started screaming and raving about heretics and how I'd tricked him. Told me he was gonna kill me.

_{[Perhaps sensing how her tone of voice had changed, Mully comes creeping up out of her collar to pat his mouthparts anxiously on the side of her face. She reaches up to scratch at his little eartufts absent-mindedly, her expression stony.]}

... That's where it gets different.

I wasn't afraid that time. Not like I was on the roof.

Because...

... I could kind of remember him. Not ... too clearly, but I could.

From my-- ... from Alessa's childhood. Enough to know what kind of a person he was. _{[Which is to say, not one at all. That had been her opinion back then and as judgmental as it was, she stands by it.]}

Because he hated her back then, too.

Before she'd ever hurt anybody.

He hurt her.

He hurt her almost every day.

_{[He hadn't been conniving and manipulative like Dahlia had-- hadn't used his child for sick and twisted goals. But that didn't matter. No frail six-year-old girl should be forced to wear bruises the size and shape of a fully grown man's boot print. Alessa had thought that even as she had been under the sinister blinkers of her mother's control.]}

He didn't remember who I was, though. He didn't know I was Alessa. Just thought I was some blasphemous little bitch who'd lied to him.

... So he tried to drown me. _{[... Drown her and feed her into the horrible, meatgrinding gears that had sat at the edge of the narrow precipice. But she can't really mention those without then having to describe what the hell something like THAT would be doing in the basement of an asylum...]}

I blew him open with a shotgun.

_{[She pauses for a moment, seemingly in thought, before adding--]}

I don't feel bad for killing him.

He was a monster.

_{[Even when you didn't mean it literally.]}

_{[Coop's been silent - again figuring it better to just let her speak, but he listens with the same attention and care as always. And as she pauses again, he doesn't think he can argue.]

[A monster ... he could argue that, because people are still people and of course Cooper doesn't know that she means it quite literally. But he does understand that some people are or were turned that way. It doesn't make taking their lives any more right, but it can make it understandable. Especially in a situation of self defense.]

[He's quiet for another moment. Then he sighs, but speaks up.]}

That doesn't mean you are.

That's what I want to know.

_{[It's a surprising thing to hear from him, and at first she's not entirely sure she heard him correctly. Because it hurts a little bit, and she's not used to Cooper saying things that hurt, even when he's upset with her. So she looks up at him, surprise and a bit of apprehension stamped on her face.]}

... You...

... You want to know... if I'm a monster or not?

_{[She asks this a little slowly, because she's making sure she's not misunderstanding. ... She has a feeling she's probably NOT misunderstanding, and... in reality, it's a perfectly legitimate question and she has NO RIGHT to think that an inherent faith in her goodness on Cooper's part is something to be taken for granted, but...]}

_{[It's almost a little funny how it hurts him too, when she asks for that clarification. There's a faint grimace and he doesn't look back to her immediately, but he does, looking a little pained.]

[And ... there's a new urgency in his tone. If she's paying attention, this is where it'll really show how upset he actually is about the whole situation. Her, her actions, her life; what it might have done to her, and what it might to do their friendship.]

[She's an important part of his life by now, something he never would have guessed. He never would have guessed he'd call her a monster, either, however indirectly. He already regrets that. That probably shows, too.]}

Heather ... _{[He hesitates, but ...]} I've seen a lot more things than I've told you about. I've seen evil. And I've seen people change.

I don't think you are like them. But ... I need you to tell me.

_{[She listens quietly. This entire fiasco-- especially what it had done to the state of things between herself and him-- has been hard to handle. But it's the tangible upset in his voice (which has been subdued up till now, the policeman being in the foreground rather than the friend she's come to know) that really hits her in the chest.]

[As is the plea at the end.]

[She looks at him a second longer, then breaks the contact, looking back down at her lap for a moment. It would be so easy to just look him in the eye and say 'No, I'm not a monster'.]

[Because in many ways, she doesn't think so at all. She knows she was in the right. She knows she did what nobody else could do, and by so doing, saved far more than her mind could even fathom in one go.]

[She knows that she's not a bad person.]

[... But at the same time...]}

... Coop, I...

_{[The nickname slips out without even a conscious thought of it, as she looks straight down.]}

... I don't...

_{[A deep breath. She has no idea what to say. She literally has no idea what to say at all, and it's killing her. Probably visibly. It's not unlike the conversation they'd had in which she confessed to being 'too fucked-up to be in a relationship like a normal person', except far more serious and every last trace of her usual humorous self-deprecation is gone.]

[But she knows she has to give him an answer. The urgency in his voice tells her that he NEEDS an answer, bad. So after a second or two of horrible, lip-gnawing indecision, she speaks up again.]}

... There's two other people who tried to kill me. Because they thought-- ... because they thought I might be a monster. _{[... Out of... you know, a LOT OF PEOPLE WHO TRIED TO KILL HER, but it's these two who are the most important to Heather right now, so listen up.]}

... Douglas... and Dad.

I still don't know why they didn't.

Seems... seems to me they had every reason in the world to. _{[Reasons that she hadn't told Cooper yet, but the look on her face would indicate that she's not bullshittng around or being vague just for the hell of it. It's an expression that's fighting to stay composed.]} N'I think things would've been better, maybe, if they had. ... For Dad, especially.

... But they didn't.

... And it's the damndest thing, Coop, after not killin' me, they ended up being the only people back home who ever cared about me.

So...

_{[Still not looking at him, she picks at one of the many holes in the knees of her jeans. They've been worn thin through many emotional conversations like this one.]}

... I dunno what I think, but at some point I guess ... I guess they decided I wasn't...

Heather --

_{[But he cuts himself off. Verbal little stumbles like that are rare for him, which you generally don't notice until they're there like this. Just another little thing to show that this isn't easy on any of them. That that information was hard to hear and no doubt even harder to tell.]

[Instead of words, he reaches over and touches her shoulder. It's not hovering or uncertain, the touch - it's there in the way he's used to being there for her, and then turns into a surprisingly affectionate gesture when he lifts his hand to gently tuck some of her hair behind her ear. Like maybe he wanted to see her face a bit clearer.]

[They're still not ... okay, but it's a reassurance that they could be. Because while that answer might not have been exactly what he asked to hear, it's actually a better one.]

[She's self-aware. She's uncertain. And in this situation that just might mean more than to claim to be right or wrong.]

[He doesn't linger though and soon his hand finds his own face in another rare gesture, of not exactly uncertainty, but ... no, that too, but a certain helplessness as well. Coop's usually the one taking charge of situations, of leading and guiding and making sure things work out. But he's not sure what he can do here.]

[Nor what he should or want to do, either.]

[He still can't just forgive her. But there's an undeniably better perspective now.]}

I'm glad they didn't.

_{[She hadn't looked at him as she spoke-- it was just easier to look away. So she doesn't see the hand coming, and jumps a tiny bit when she feels it come to rest on her shoulder.]

[And when he brushes her hair out of her face, she almost looks like she's not sure it's happening-- only to shut her eyes in what could be considered a sort of relief at the contact. At the contact, and at his words. No, it's not forgiveness or a statement that all is well... but what it is is a confirmation that her fears (did he, could he, WOULD he think that she was a monster?) weren't real. At least not right now.]

[Rather than reply, at first all she does is let out a trembling breath that might have, very quietly, contained the words 'Thank you' somewhere in it, and she does not shrug away from the fleeting contact. Those four words and the touch of his hand on her face pretty much say more than most long speeches ever could.]

[And then, with a bit of a sniff, she reaches up to swipe a sleeve across her nose once the contact withdraws.]}

... I, um...

I don't have anymore... 'xamples of people I've killed. _{[There were those who had been killed by Alessa... but murders committed incorporeally by an abused six-to-fourteen-year-old under either coercion or extreme desperation could not truly be called murders, and that's one thing Heather has no doubt about.]} I've told you all of them...

... Is... is that okay?

_{[She finally looks back up at him, because yeah, she saw the look on his face at the beginning of the conversation when she'd told him she couldn't tell him about certain things yet, and... well, wants him to know that she's not withholding anything else on this particular subject.]}

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030 - audio/action

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[action] THESE TWO ;-;

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